GAZA CITY, Palestine

The Israeli army’s intrusion into an artifacts warehouse in Gaza constitutes a serious violation and threat to Palestinian heritage, contravening international agreements, the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said Thursday.

“The Israeli occupation's intrusion into the archaeological warehouse in Gaza is a serious violation and a threat to Palestinian heritage, violating international agreements such as the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict,” the ministry said.

It did not specify the exact location and date of the intrusion.

However, Eli Eskozido, the director of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, posted a video on his X account Sunday showing Israeli soldiers at an archaeological site in Gaza.

The ministry condemned the intrusion into “the warehouse containing thousands of important archaeological pieces discovered during excavations over the past years, representing an essential part of the history of Gaza and Palestine as a whole.”

It called on “all international institutions and organizations to intervene immediately to stop the aggression and protect Palestine's national heritage, which is considered part of the heritage of humanity.”

It emphasized that “hundreds of archaeological sites and landmarks have been destroyed during the (Israeli) aggression on Gaza, indicating that the occupation is continuing its systematic destruction of Palestinian heritage, which serves as evidence of our people's right to this land.”

The ministry also demanded that Israel “immediately cease its aggression on the Gaza Strip and stop targeting heritage sites in Palestine.”

At the same time, it stressed that it is “monitoring, along with all international bodies, all the attacks and crimes committed by the occupation forces against heritage sites.”

The Gaza media office had previously said that Israel had targeted and destroyed more than 200 archaeological and heritage sites out of a total of 325 as part of its ongoing war on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7.

Gaza is considered one of the ancient cities of the world, having been ruled by the Pharaohs, Greeks, Romans and Byzantines and then experiencing Islamic conquest.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas, killing at least 25,900 Palestinians and injuring 64,110 others. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli war has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while more than half of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala